Ultimately, NK is China’s “cat’s paw,” a cut-out for a future attack on the USA. Let’s say in a few years NK fires 40 missiles at the USA and ten get through and five cities are obliterated in mushroom clouds. The economy of the USA is totally wrecked in the aftermath. The era of the superpower USA is over. China rules all of Asia undisputed master.
So in retaliation we blow NK off the map. Who cares? China laughs, their NK “cat’s paw” strategy worked perfectly.
I’d tell China privately that any ICBM coming out of NK will be treated as an ICBM coming out of CHINA, period. The NK missiles say “Made In China” under the new NK paint job. Any attack from the NK “cats paw” is an attack by CHINA.
Only then will China move to curtail their puppet state NK.
They better be very small cities...because the largest tested nuke that the NORKS have is less than 10kt...smaller than Hiroshima and Nagasaki...and the only reason those cities looked like moonscapes is that both cities were built out of paper and sticks. They do NOT have a fusion (thermonuclear) weapon. Just fission (atomic).
“I’d tell China privately that any ICBM coming out of NK will be treated as an ICBM coming out of CHINA, period. The NK missiles say “Made In China” under the new NK paint job. Any attack from the NK “cats paw” is an attack by CHINA.”
How do know that wasn’t said and that message received by the PRC?
China’s response might have still been what they’ve just said.
Basically the PRC has just told N. Korea to back down.
We can’t know what will happen in 10 years. We also can’t know what is going on behind the scenes between the PRC and the DPRK. I’ve lived in China. I’ve talked to middle rank party apparatchiks there. They are not found of North Korea but feel sort of a weird Confucian responsibility for them.
N. Korea now knows that they can’t start a hot war and count on China’s help. That is a big step in the right direction. Combined with the PRC officially revising its history of the Korean war a couple of days ago to something that approaches the truth and telling N. Korea essentially, “You owe us, in fact, if it weren’t for us you’d not be there.”
I agree there is some gray area here. That can be clarified by having the PRC define what constitutes and attack by N. Korea. Bt, that is a better question to ask than “What will China do if.........?”
By allowing China to save face the situation is, at least for now defused and relations with the PRC are not fractured. Those are good things. Now we can work with India to defuse the situation between China and India.
This is a win. A big one for the Trump administration.